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DALL-E 2023-12-01 11.58.18 - A photorealistic image of an elephant rampaging through a china shop, with shelves of delicate porcelain items being knocked over and shattered. The e

The Arts and Culture discount can start as early as 13 December

On 6 December, the new House of Representatives will be sworn in. a week later, the deliberations on the budget tabled by the incumbent caretaker cabinet in September will begin. The then secretary of state for culture, Gunay Uslu, has since flown the coop and cannot be challenged on her budget. Someone else will now have to defend that budget. Those who wondered whether the peace... 

The Artists Are Present: Rebellious bodies, empowering moves, fluid identities, collective movement: 13 to 15 December theatre Frascati

The Artists Are Present is ICK Dance Amsterdam's festival in which a new generation of artists present themselves to the public and share the floor with each other. From 13 to 15 December, young dance and performance makers take you on an exciting voyage of discovery in a dynamic programme of performances, unexpected pop-up presentations and conversations. .The short December days... 

Partners Faces of North Holland. photo: Francoise Bolechowski

Amsterdam Museum presents programme for 2024

In 2024, the Amsterdam Museum has several exhibitions on the agenda, both in the building on the Amstel and in Huis Willet-Holthuysen. Among other things, 2024 will focus on the role of women in our collections, the significance of Piet van Eeghen for the history of Amsterdam and 400 years of the connection between Amsterdam and New York. New in... 

The Romeo - Orpheas_Emirzas

First performances Holland Festival 2024 announced

Ticket sales start on 28 November for the first four performances for the 77th edition of the Holland Festival. 11,000 Saiten ('11,000 strings') by composer Georg Friedrich Haas is a spectacular sound experience in Amsterdam's Gashouder, by fifty pianists and the ensemble Klangforum Wien. Choreographer Trajal Harrell returns with The Romeo, his new large-scale dance performance. The Bird of... 

photo by Jaïr Tchong

HOW I FOUND DUENDE IN RABAT

1. During 9/11, I was in Salamanca with two friends. The day Geert Wilders managed to amass 37 seats (thank you VVD and normalising media), I was in Rabat, attending the Visa for Music music conference, with which the European Jazz Network (one of the best-functioning networks within European cultural funding, I say as a new kid... 

scene photo rhapsody © Kurt Van der Elst,

Josse de Pauw and Asko|Schönberg bring heaven a little closer

It was 2000 and Wim Kayzer, of the VPRO, brought a series of television evenings that went against everything commercial. It was called 'Of Beauty and Consolation' and featured evening-long interviews with people like Jane Goodall, J.M. Coetzee, Karel Appel and George Steiner. Intellectuals, artists, thinkers. On 23 November 2023, the day after 22/11, when the Netherlands held an open... 

Overview of additional costs per sector (Source Kunsten92)

Research: fair pay in arts sector will cost an extra 180 million by 2025

The research is there, and the figures are not uplifting. In the arts sector, underpaying especially freelancers and not honouring overtime is standing policy. If this is to be made up from now on, with the existing budget, small institutions and festivals in particular will fall over immediately. The study on this was presented yesterday to outgoing Culture Secretary Uslu. Principal Arts... 

graph sales figures children's book week 2019-2023 (source: KVB Boekwerk)

Children's Book Week figures drop, but KVB Boekwerk likes to tell it otherwise.

"Sales of children's books during Children's Book Week edition 2023 are higher than in 2019, 2020 and 2021. This applies to both sales through physical shops and e-commerce." KVB-Boekwerk, the research institute of Dutch Booksellers, has been publishing trend reports on the book market for a few years now. This year, for the first time, these include figures on sales of children's books,... 

a photo-realistic image inspired by the text you provided. It depicts a lively and colourful debate scene during a cultural event at the Herz hall of TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht. The scene illustrates part of the 'Collective Creative Culture Debate', with a diverse group of participants including artists, policymakers and political figures. The atmosphere is a mix of serious discussion and informal conversation, with a focus on arts and culture policy. A digital display of DALL-E-generated interpretations of political party programmes can be seen in the background, transitioning into a series of socialist-realist artworks.

Collective Creative Culture Debate shows desperation art sector 

"But in the next week, can't you still come up with a law that enshrines art education in primary education?" A striking moment in the 'Collective Creative Culture Debate' held in a packed Herz of TivoliVredenburg on Wednesday 15 November. The Creative Coalition and Kunsten '92 made one last attempt to put arts and culture on the agenda of the... 

Poster of Dancing Strings Festival 2023, organised by Marmoucha Orchestra and Dancing Strings.

Dancing Strings Festival 2023 | 24, 25 & 26 November

Enter the world of 'Dancing Strings'. Together with Marmoucha, Dancing Strings Festival brings together the world's most enchanting stringed instruments, with a focus on the ancient and masterful 'ud. The festival takes audiences on a musical journey where the 'ud shines as a solo instrument but also as an integral part of various line-ups featuring stringed instruments from different cultures. The festival's programme consists of five parts each evening. The composers will play their own works and be accompanied by the Marmoucha Orchestra. These works have been arranged by Ardashes Aghosian.

DALL-E 2023-11-14 17.16.50 - A noir-style, black and white illustration of modern jazz musicians performing in the Dutch House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal

IN PERSPECTIVE 18: Has it already started, or is jazz policy in the Netherlands already over?

In the series In Perspective, Erik Akkermans looks back and ahead at developments in cultural policy and practice. Today: policies for jazz and improvised music. From the Oude Schans to Rijswijk May 1983, Monday morning, a quarter past eight. Location: the soulless office tower in Rijswijk housing the Ministry of Welfare, Public Health and Culture. Minister Brinkman addressed the members of the Working Group on... 

The future of theatre is flexible. In conversation with Huub Huikeshoven and Arjen Berendse on ´What is a good theatre?'  

"There is something strange going on. Municipalities have no money to build or furnish such a theatre, and companies have too little money to make productions. So it is chafing on both sides." Huub Huikeshoven, trained as an interior designer, works at Theateradvies, an organisation that advises on the layout and design of theatres. There, it turns out quite... 

November Music 2023-Bosch Requiem-AartStrootman-Jostijn Ligtvoet Photography

November Music 2023 successful

With Fuse's rousing final concert, November Music 2023 came to an end on Sunday 12 November. Twelve days of versatile new music featured contemporary composed works, choral music, electro-jazz, Arabic maqam, musical theatre and much more. Bosch Requiem 2023 composed by Aart Strootman, John Zorn and all the concerts by Maya Fridman were highlights. Our thanks... 

The table in Turbulence Jamais Vu. Photo by Leo Bankersen

IDFA 2023 - DocLab and the shadow worlds

Does something get better when it is sanded? Art as the grindstone of the mind? The age-old concept of dialectics, the clash of opposites from which something new emerges? This 17th edition of IDFA's DocLab, the programme full of digital art, interactive work and virtual worlds, is themed 'Phenomenal Friction'. Technology is mostly focused on efficiency and convenience, but DocLab invites us to... 

© Kurt Van der Elst, scene photo Rhapsody

Dutch premiere Rhapsody - The musicality of grinding minds

LOD muziekktheater in coproduction with Asko|Schönberg23/11 Amsterdam, Muziekgebouw26/11 Breda, Chassé Theatert/m 22/2 diversie theatres in Belgium Belgian actor Josse De Pauw and composer Frederik Neyrinck are inspired by Wim Kayzer's television series Van de schoonheid en de troost. 'Tell me what makes this life worth living' is how Wim Kayzer opened the conversation with artists, scientists and philosophers in his legendary television series Van de... 

Luna Quartet and Vincent van Amsterdam

In Den Bosch this Sunday, I heard light breaking

At half past eleven on a Sunday morning, it might be a bit much: Maya Fridman, improvising on her cello. Watching her play, together with pianist Maarten van Veen, is an intense experience. She becomes one with her instrument, it overwhelms her, it is almost too intimate to watch. But what warmth waves through the audience.... 

Theatres join forces and take on co-producer role

The Coproducers is an initiative of 12 theatres whereby they act as co-producers of productions by theatre makers who are no longer starting, but also not yet established. By corona there is a gap in the career development of younger creators, last year the Council for Culture and State Secretary for Culture and Media Gunay Uslu sounded the alarm. This season push... 

PR image November Music

'Transformation makes music interesting' Simon Steen-Andersen's surprising 'Inszinierte Nacht' is coming to November Music 

The image should especially pierce piano lovers: a concert grand piano crashing out of the ceiling onto a stage in super slomo. The interior bulges out, keys fly around. Moments later, the ruined piano empire turns out to play a part in a real piano concerto after all. It could have been a one-off performance, were it not for the... 

Marcel Duchamp, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Duchamp's urinal is said to belong to female artist. Or does the business stink?

It had been hanging in the air for a while, but now there seems to be fairly incontrovertible evidence that Marcel Duchamp did not invent his urinal artwork himself. A book to be published next month claims that the inventor of 'conceptual' art nicked his thing from German artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. That in itself was a longer-running ... 

House of Vineyard in the Willet-Holthuysen House. Photo: Bete van Meeuwen.

'Grand March: The Willet-Holthuysen House through a Ballroom Lens.'

From 2 December 2023, the Amsterdam Museum will present the exhibition Grand March: Celebrating Ten Years of Dutch Ballroom Culture. The exhibition is a collaboration with House of Vineyard, the first ballroom house in the Netherlands. In the rooms of Amsterdam Museum location Huis Willet-Holthuysen, House of Vineyard shows the power of ballroom culture with stimulating fashion interventions and art installations. Interventions and installations As trailblazers of... 

Scene image by Rogier Boogaard

Frank Masmeijer won't regret Nottrots Holiday Show

Whether it could be a little less superficial was the question from an audience member halfway through the first part of The Utility's Great Holiday Show. Greg Nottrot, in the role of quizmaster of this pastiche on the great 1980s television show, promises there will be another layer. Because he is obliged to, since he gets subsidy. Welcome... 

A Jennifer Walshe course in 10 lessons #novembermusic2023

"Maybe the future of music is string quartets doing Skype performances for babies in neonatal wards, maybe everything is on an iPhone but edited to sound like a low-quality mp3 you downloaded from Napster in 2002, maybe it's soundscapes in sacred springs. I'm much more interested in this way of thinking." (Jennifer... 

NSC and BBB election programmes: get cultural money for region from national funds. 

There it is, the long-awaited election manifesto of the 'Who Says A, Must Say B' party New Social Contract. Until now, Pieter Omtzigt has not been known as an art lover. Nor are there any notable culture people on his candidate list, so the fact that it contains anything about culture at all is a bonus. It's 9 points, I'll highlight 2 of them: "To promote the creation of... 

Photos: Jostijn Ligtvoet Photography / Festival Circolo

Erik Berkey winner BNG Bank Circus Prize 2023

During a festive gathering in a bulging circus tent, Erik Berkey was declared the winner of the BNG Bank Circus Prize 2023 . With his impressive act, Erik managed to convince the jury as this year's most outstanding circus graduate. Erik Berkey received a cheque of € 7,500 from Harald Bergmann (mayor of Middelburg and board member of the BNG Culture Fund). The presentation of the... 

Illustration Mart Veldhuis

From start: Andermans schuld - Art project on debt by NUT in collaboration with Mart Veldhuis, De Buurtwerkkamer and Poverty Coalition Utrecht

The NUT (Nieuw Utrechts Toneel) presents, in collaboration with illustrator Mart Veldhuis, Andermans schuld: a social project at the intersection of visual art, podcast & language aimed at making the world of debt visible. From autumn 2023, various artists will engage with people with debt, a debt story or people working in the world of debt. The... 

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